Page 37 of The Luckiest Lady in London

“Exactly. If I know you, you will go on lying, bust improvers or no.”

“Then why did you propose to me?”

It always came back to this central mystery, this seemingly benign puzzle at the foundation of her current good fortune.

“Because you will never have headaches,” he answered in apparent seriousness.

“I beg your pardon?”

His lips quivered. “Nothing. Just know that I am looking forward to being the most happily married man in the empire.”

He smiled at her. And it was such a gorgeous smile that a few moments passed before she remembered that she, too, never trusted a word he said.

* * *

Why had Felix proposed to her?

He had not answered her because he was coming to the realization that it was impossible to prevaricate when he couldn’t pin down the truth.

Like affixing the position of stars in the sky—if one didn’t know where one stood, the exercise became futile. An accurate knowledge of the truth was, for him at least, a necessary starting point for any well-crafted lie.

He, who could look people in the eye, smile, and spin a perfect yarn on the spot, was dodging her question because he had failed to find the real reason behind his action.

Was it merely because his conscience itched over what he’d said about Lord Firth? Because he pitied her? Because he’d always planned on marrying a country bumpkin anyway, and she was as good as any rosy-cheeked girl he could have in twenty years?

He was able to become The Ideal Gentleman because he knew every last one of his faults intimately—and therefore understood exactly how he ought to misdirect attention and create illusions.

But now he had based one of the most important decisions of his life on a shifting foundation.

Perhaps more alarmingly, he almost didn’t care—not when there were bust improver–sized revelations to be had. The knowledge gave him a secret elation, an expansive pleasure, so that when they parted that day, he told her, “Go on wearing those bust improvers. In fact, have some bigger ones made.”

Her expression of befuddlement and suspicion was also a thing of joy.

He further misdirected her attention by opening lines of credit at various establishments and gifting her mother a house that had thirty rooms. As if she weren’t busy enough with a wedding breathing down her neck, she was now also required to inspect chairs, drapery, and side tables.

“If you are trying to make me drop dead from exhaustion, you are not far from succeeding,” she accused him the last time they saw each other before the wedding.

No one else spoke to him as she did, with as much frankness and…could he call it affection? Yes, he decided, exasperated affection, but affection all the same. “Will you ever stop suspecting me of ulterior motives?”

“Yes, when you stop harboring as many of them as a Medici pope.”

“Then whom will you suspect for fun?” he answered cheerfully. He usually enjoyed himself around people. Her company, however, he adored.

And tomorrow they would join in matrimony, for as long they both should live.

He had been trying not to think of the wedding night—no need to torment himself lusting after what would soon be his. But sometimes he couldn’t quite help the direction of his thoughts.

Dear, dear Louisa was in for a night to remember.

She cleared her throat. “You said you’d come to give me my wedding present.”

So she’d caught him ogling her—forgivable for a man the day before his wedding. “Your wedding present is currently being set up in the conservatory at Huntington. After all your sisters and your mother each told me separately about the telescope, I had no choice but to buy one exactly like the one that slipped from your fingers.”

Her eyes narrowed dramatically. “You mean you wouldn’t have bought it for me on your own?”

“Of course not. I’d have bought you a much better one, but now you are stuck with your heart’s desire.”

Her scowl turned into a smile. “Well, I can live with that.”